Nineteen Eighty-Five
The Goon Show: Nineteen Eighty-Five
First broadcast on January 4, 1955 (05/15) Script by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes Produced by Peter Eton Orchestra conducted by Bruce Campbell Musical interludes by Ray Ellington quartet and Max Geldray
Nineteen Eighty-Five is a parody of Nigel Kneale's television version of George Orwell's '1984', with every major scene played out. The show was so successful that it was re-performed, by popular demand, five weeks later on February 8th, with a pre-recorded appearance of John Snagge replacing Peter Sellers for the 'Attention England State' announcement (the first of a number of pre- recorded appearances he made over the years). It was the first recording that was later released on LP.
Cast:
Big Brother: {Sellers}/[John Snagge] 2 Winston Seagoon: Harry Secombe 93 {Groucho Marks}/[Ben Lyon]: Peter Sellers 2 Bluebottle: Peter Sellers 36 Charrington: Peter Sellers 5 Horrace Minnick Peter Sellers 5 Major Dennis Bloodnok: Peter Sellers 6 Miss Fnutt: Peter Sellers 16 Vision Master: Peter Sellers 34 Barbara Kelly Ray Ellington 2 Eccles: Spike Milligan 35 Moriarty: Spike Milligan 6 Announcer Wallace Greenslade 6
Other parts read by members of the cast in their own voice.
Transcriber Russell Street
GREENSLADE: This is the BBC Home Service.
SELLERS: (pre-recorded) Big Brother is watching YOU!
ECCLES: OooOooow
FX: LARGE RESOUNDING DULL GONG (much smaller Gong in Kendall version)
SECOMBE: (proclaiming) Listeners! You are warned. This programme, is NOT, to be listened to! (manic laugh)
MILLIGAN: aurrrggg eurgggh eaurggh (strangulated noises)
BLUEBOTTLE: Ehee hee! I don't like this game!
GREENSLADE: (proclaiming) The BBC would like to caution parents: this programme is unsuitable for the very young, the very old, the middle aged, those just going off, those on the turn, young dogs and alderman John Snagge.
FX: LARGE RESOUNDING DULL GONG (much smaller Gong in Kendall version)
MILLIGAN: (announcing) This is the story of the year Nineteen Eighty-Five!
GRAMS: GROANING, WAILING AND CRYING INTO SCREAMING
ORCHESTRA: TEA PARTY DANCE MUSIC (1922 JACK PAYNE ONE-STEP?)
WINSTON: My name is eight-four-six Winston Seagoon. I am a worker in the great news collecting centre of the Big Brother Corporation, or as you knew it, the BBC. In every room is a TV screen that gives out a stream of orders.
BIG BROTHER: ({Sellers}[John Snagge]) Attention people of England State. Thanks to de-rationing and the free market the price of tea has now gone down to eighty-five guineas a quarter. And here is good news for state housewives, the following goods are now in the shops: plastic and sawdust elephant night-shirts; second hand concrete parachutes; artificial explodable woollen bloomers; men's self igniting tailess shirts - with anti thunder-sheet attachment. There are {(said with emphasis)} unlimited supplies in the shops!!
ECCLES: Oh, it's good to be alive {,} in 1985
BIG BROTHER: Now here is announcer {283947625324769854327618976 stroke 2} [28394762532453425677896577 stroke 32] (*1)
WINSTON: Good old Greenslade.
GREENSLADE: (announcing) Special interest to BBC workers: By mixing water with earth our scientists have invented MUD! It's now on sale in the BBC canteen under the name of Macaroni au Gratin or coffee.
WINSTON: Big fat slob, get off the screen!
GRAMS: WHOOSH
VISION MASTER: (Sellers: Grytpype Thynne voice) Worker Seagoon, did I hear you complaining?
WINSTON: Ohh (nervous titter), Vision Master Ronnie Waldman (*2).
VISION MASTER: You are not complaining about our {new} BBC TV are you?
WINSTON: [Oh ha ha] No {(gaspy)}, {oh} no. I ...
VISION MASTER: (quickly) What is the finest TV programme in the world?
WINSTON: (automatically) Kaleidoscope.
VISION MASTER: You are forgiven. As a penance you will put a copy of the RadioTimes in your window. [And] don't forget to watch tonight's programme...
WINSTON: Oh yes, 'Ask Son of Pickles'.
VISION MASTER: Yes. Tonight he hopes to have a one-legged dying Eskimo play the piano for him. Now everybody, face the TV screen. [It's] time for the 'Hate Half Hour'
MORIARTY: Attention all! Coming on the screen now is the one man you must hate! The sworn enemy of the Big Brother Corporation, [and] this is him!
MINNICK: (Sellers: Lew/Cash voice) Listen, listen! Don't believe them! Listen! BBC workers. Rise and overthrow your masters before it's too late. I will lead you against them. Strike now! Revolt!
WINSTON: So this was {Horrace Minnick} [Maurice Winnickstein] (*3), leader of the ITA.
MINNICK: Join the Independent Television Army now.
CAST: HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! HATE! ...
MORIARTY: [~~~ ~~~ ~~~] {STOP!} Stop. Enough. Now here is a special announcement from Big Brother!
ORCHESTRA: FANFARE
ANNOUNCER: (over public address system) BBC workers. The canteen is now open. Lunch is ready. Doctors are standing by.
[FX: SOUND OF CANTEEN HUBBUB, CUPS & SAUCERS CLINKING]
WINSTON: As I sat at my table eating my boiled water I began to hate Big Brother Corporation.
ECCLES: {Hey} [Hello there] Winston. [Here] Guess what I found in my dinner.
WINSTON: What?
ECCLES: [A piece of] Food! Oh [ho], it's good to be alive in 1985!
WINSTON: Poor producer fool. Still, sixty years with the Huggets would turn anyone.
FNUTT: (Sellers Cynthia voice) I love you darling!
ECCLES: I love you too {, darling}.
FNUTT: Not you two-one-three Eccles, you eight-four-six Winston.
WINSTON: You are a woman, aren't you?
FNUTT: Yes.
WINSTON: Thank heaven, you have got to be careful these days [you know].
FNUTT: {Eight-four-six} Winston, darling, I have loved you from afar.
WINSTON: My favourite distance. {But} who are you?
FNUTT: I am six-one-two Miss Fnutt. I operate the Pornograph Machine in the Forbidden Records Department. [And] I love you {, do you hear me!}.
WINSTON: {No...} no love is not for us.
FNUTT: {No...} [Yes...]
WINSTON: ...[No] love is only for the higher income group, John Snagge, Audrey Cameron and Paul Fenoulhet (*4).
FNUTT: [Darling] Let's take a chance. Let's meet somewhere under the moon alone. We can clasp each other to each other and then... ohhhh...
ECCLES: Ohhh! It's good to be alive in 1985!
WINSTON: Shut up, Eccles!
ECCLES: Shut up, Eccles...
WINSTON: Now darling, where [can we meet]?
FNUTT: Somewhere where no one is listening.
WINSTON: I know the [very] place. Home Service, eight thirty Tuesday night.
FNUTT: You mean, the forbidden Goon Sector...
WINSTON: Yes. Wait, that belt you are wearing...
FNUTT: That's the Anti-Sex League belt.
WINSTON: Ahemm, Well I don't think I will come.
FNUTT: {No, no,} [Oh] but, you too are wearing the Anti-Sex League belt.
WINSTON: I was forced to.
FNUTT: Why?
WINSTON: My trousers kept falling down.
FNUTT: Till Tuesday {, darling...}
FX: HORSE GALLOPING OFF INTO DISTANCE (COCONUT SHELL) {WINSTON: (quietly) Till Tuesday . . .}
WINSTON: There she goes, little fairy. That night in my room I sat out of range of the TV screen. I loved Fnutt, and I hate Big Brother. I wrote it in my diary "I hate BB, I hate BB, I hate BB, I hate BB"
FX: PHONE RINGING. RECEIVER UP.
WINSTON: Hello?
{GROUCHO} [Hello] Don't tell anybody, but I hate BB too. [BEN LYON (*5)]:
WINSTON: Who are you {, Ben Lyon} ?
{GROUCHO: No. I was, but this script was altered.} [BEN LYON: Ben Lyon.]
WINSTON: {Karl Marx,} so there was an underground movement. I must try and find it [and do my best to save England from tyranny]. I strode into the street {, pausing only to hear worker Geldray play a perforated haddock sock at the slope... }
INTERVAL: MAX GELDRAY - 'IT HAD TO BE YOU' (applause)
WINSTON: {And so} I entered the forbidden Goon Sector of London {hoping to contact a member of the ITA}. Once there I went {in}to the notorious [Goon] public house, 'The Grosvenor'.
GRAMS: GLASS SMASHING, DRINKING SONG ON OLD GRAMOPHONE, MURMUR OF CUSTOMERS
BLOODNOK: {Now lads I know you are all enjoying yourselves, but} [Silence, silence] silence please, silence for the cabaret. I have pleasure in presenting those glamorous Grandmothers, the three Beverly Sisters!
FX: GUN SHOT
BLOODNOK: Correction, the Beverly Twins!
FX: GUN SHOT
BLOODNOK: Miss Beverly will sing...
FX: GUN SHOT BLOODNOK: Everybody dance!
GRAMS: BAR PIANO PLAYING, HUBBUB OF CUSTOMERS
WINSTON: To think, this used to be Palm Court. I looked around the bar. They were dressed in cloth caps, corduroy trousers, rough lumberjacket shirts, bald heads and beards, and some of them men were dressed the same.
BLUEBOTTLE: Eheehee!
WINSTON: Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you...
BLUEBOTTLE: Fear not. You did not hurt me. Enter Bluebottle the toast of the Goon Sector. [No sausages, ehehe (applause)] Thank you fellow Goons for the sausanges [applause].
WINSTON: What is that plain wrapper book you are reading?
BLUEBOTTLE: It is a naughty little bookule. Listen to this: "In the darkness she felt his hot breath on her bed rails. [(snorting)] Then a warm hand fell on her marble wash stand."
WINSTON: STOP! Stop {, stop} that {at once}. Give me that book [at once]!
BLUEBOTTLE: Why?
WINSTON: I want to read it. What's it called?
BLUEBOTTLE: {It's called} 'Mrs Dale's Real Diary'.
WINSTON: Mrs Dale's...?? Heavens, would the BBC stop at nothing? So this {was} [is] how they kept the masses from thinking.
BLUEBOTTLE: Eheehee! Look at this page! Eheehee! It's a three-D picture of Mrs Dale in her night-shirt being chased by Richard Dimbleby... Eheehee! Eheehee {heeheehee! fsssssl} Eheeheeoooooughhhh... Pauses to wipe drool off chin. {Eee!}
WINSTON: I had to go outside. I couldn't bear to watch these poor Goons wallow in misery. It was then I wandered into an antique shop.
FX: DOOR OPENS, SHOP BELL
CHARRINGTON: (Sellers:Old man not as doddery as Crun)(singing) I've got a loverly bunch of coconuts...
WINSTON: Good evening. Do you mind if I take a gander around the shop?
CHARRINGTON: No, as long as it's house-trained... (continues singing) [They are standing in a row ...]
WINSTON: (off) I say! (on) What's this old object?
CHARRINGTON: That, beautiful isn't it? It's called a cricket bat.
WINSTON: Oh yes... {yes...} did[n't] they have test matches way back?
CHARRINGTON: Yes, {that...} that's [quite] right. As a matter of fact this bat was used in the very last test {by Len Hutton} (*6) [by an Australian opening bat], you can see it's quite unmarked.
WINSTON: Old man, tell me, what was it like back in {1954} [1955]?
CHARRINGTON: Well [, well] we had sports and games, coloured movies, {Charlie Chester}, Monkhouse, Gilbert Harding (*7), ohhh, it was terrible.
FX: DOOR OPENS, SHOP BELL
ECCLES: {Here, Winston. Look, look who I brought along} [Winston look who's here].
FNUTT: Hello, dearest.
WINSTON: Darling, {darling} I love you.
ECCLES: {And} I love you too.
WINSTON: Shut up {, Eccles!}
ECCLES: Shut up {, you!} [shut up]
FNUTT: We were looking in the window for antiques and we saw you.
WINSTON: Ahhemm. We mustn't be seen together, quick, into this room.
FX: RATTLE OF KNOB, DOOR OPENS & CLOSES
FNUTT: Darling, alone at last! WINSTON: {Oh,} dearest Fnutt, let me kiss you.
ECCLES: Oh ho here! Don't start yet, I'll get a chair.
WINSTON: Eccles, you go outside and keep watch.
ECCLES: I can watch better in here. {Oh ho!}
WINSTON: Eccles!
{ECCLES: Yup.}
FX: RATTLE OF KNOB, DOOR OPENS & CLOSES
WINSTON: There's the door.. And now dearest, alone at last...
ECCLES: Yep, Alone at last.
WINSTON: Eccles! Get out or I will...
{ECCLES: Ok...ok...}
FX: RATTLE OF DOOR KNOB, DOOR OPENS & CLOSES
ECCLES: Huh! Telling me to get out [like that]. [Huh] See if I care. I don't care {- I don't care, I just don't care that's all.} Slamming the door like that [on me], they can {stop in} [stand] there all night for all I care. [I don't care at all, I don't care] I don't mind, I'll wait here until they've finished. I don't mind...
WINSTON: (Yells) Will you stop muttering and get out!!!
ECCLES: Ok...
FX: DOOR CLOSES
ECCLES: Ooooh!
BLUEBOTTLE: Eheehee!!
ECCLES: Bluebottle!
BLUEBOTTLE: Eccles!
{ECCLES: Ahh houm.}
{BLUEBOTTLE: Eh hehee.}
ECCLES: {Here...you were looking through the,} you were looking through the key hole? BLUEBOTTLE: Yes I was. Ehee!
ECCLES: {It's naughty, it's} [You know that's naughty, that's] naughty to look through the key hole, very very {(voice trailing off)} naughty to look through the key hole... {very naughty ...}
BLUEBOTTLE: Well stop looking through it when you are talking to me [den]!
ECCLES: I was only looking because {, I tell you something }
{BLUEBOTTLE: What is it?}
ECCLES: {I, } I ain't never seen a fella kiss a girl {before}.
BLUEBOTTLE: {Cor...} haven't you Eccles?
ECCLES: Nooo! Here... {(clicks tongue)} here...
{BLUEBOTTLE: What, Eccles?}
ECCLES: Have you ever kissed a girl?
BLUEBOTTLE: Eheehee!! [No, I'm] Not gonna tell you!
ECCLES: [Oh ~~~] {Well..} Come on {, come on, I}, I won't tell anybody.
BLUEBOTTLE: No {no} I'm not going to say
[ECCLES: Come on]
BLUEBOTTLE: I'm a man of mystery!
ECCLES: {But I'm your friend.} Come on ... [ you're my friend, come on] have you ever kissed a girl? {come on}
[BLUEBOTTLE: nwha?]
[ECCLES: Have you ever kissed a girl?]
BLUEBOTTLE: Ehhhhee. ... Yes!!!
BLUEBOTTLE & (both laughing/giggling, tailing off over 10 ECCLES: seconds)
{ECCLES: Yuh.} {BLUEBOTTLE: Eccles?}
{ECCLES: Yup!}
{BLUEBOTTLE: I've seen something you haven't seen .. }
{ECCLES: What, what, what's that? }
{BLUEBOTTLE: I have seen, I've seen my sister's washing on the line!!}
{BLUEBOTTLE & (laughing)} ECCLES:
ECCLES: Ohhh, It's good to be alive! [Oh Bluebottle, you're ~~~, you're ~~~ ..(???)]
BLUEBOTTLE: Yes. I'm a happy go-lucky-man [that's what I am]! {Eheehee!} Thinks: I'm a happy go lucky man.
[ECCLES: Oh yeh, he thinks he's a happy-go-lucky man]
FX: RATTLE OF DOOR KNOB, DOOR OPENS
WINSTON: What's all this noise [about]! You, what do you want?
BLUEBOTTLE: I have a messange [for you], if you want to join the {Independent Television Army} [ITA], report at once to number ten{,} R-U-Certain Street.
WINSTON: R-U-Certain?
BLUEBOTTLE: Positive!
WINSTON: Right! Lets go!
GRAMS: WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH
WINSTON: (breathing heavily) Here we are. {Number ten, the} ITA headquarters [number ten].
VISION MASTER: {Oh,} Winston, I've been expecting you.
WINSTON: Vision Master Waldman [of the BBC], what are you doing...
VISION MASTER: Don't be frightened. I am {a secret member} [one] of the {Independent Television Army} [ITA].
WINSTON: I had a feeling you were. I knew it by the little things, the way you smiled at me across the room, the way you touched my hair when you passed my chair (singing opera style) Little things meeeeeeeeean a lotttt!!
VISION MASTER: You silly, twisted boy, you. Now then, you want to join ITA?
WINSTON: Yes.
VISION MASTER: What do you know about television?
WINSTON: [I had] three years at the BBC staff training college.
VISION MASTER: What did you learn?
WINSTON: Nothing.
VISION MASTER: Good. We'll make you a director. Now say after me, "down with the BBC!"
WINSTON: Down with the BBC!
VISION MASTER: Drink.
FX: SMASHING GLASSES
WINSTON: We drank and smashed our glasses in the fire place, I had to borrow a spare pair to find my way home. {As I walked home I paused only to build a rough brick radiogram to play a record of Ray Ellington and his proles.}
{INTERVAL: RAY ELLINGTON QUARTET: 'SHAKE RATTLE AND ROLL'} (applause)
MORIARTY: {Silence! Un~~~. Stop !} [Attention, everyone face the T V screen] Attention! Eight-four-six Winston Seagoon. You are under arrest for conspiring with {the Independent Television Army}[ITA]. You will await detention by the studio attendants, you will then be prepared for the agonising death {type three}.
WINSTON: Had they suspected me?
MORIARTY: {Silence!!} You will be taken to room one-oh-one
WINSTON: No! Not one-oh-one, not the listening room! Oh noo!!! (crying "no... no ..." off into the background) GREENSLADE: (over top of Winston crying) I would just like to mention that the Radio Times is now on sale at all [better class] book stores price thrippence, and jolly good value for money it is too.
WINSTON: No! No! Let me go! Why are they strapping me in this box? Why these earphones?
VISION MASTER: Hello Winston, laddie.
WINSTON: [Ahh,] Vision Master Waldman. So [, so] they got you too...
VISION MASTER: Yes, they got me a long time ago. I [even] remember the date, Monday night at eight. Now Winston, we must torture you..
WINSTON: You .. you traitor, you deceived me!
VISION MASTER: Yes [,yes], of course you can save yourself.
WINSTON: How?
VISION MASTER: Just sign this three-year BBC contract.
WINSTON: What if I refuse?
VISION MASTER: You have no option.
WINSTON: A BBC contract with no option? Impossible. What has become of my beloved? What have you done to Miss Fnutt?
VISION MASTER: Fnutt will never walk the streets again.
WINSTON: Why not?
VISION MASTER: She's bought a scooter. Now, are you going to sign?
WINSTON: No {, fno!}
VISION MASTER: Greenslade, turn the knob to two four seven metres.
GRAMS: 'MRS DALES DIARY', GETTING FASTER AND FASTER UNDER:
WINSTON: No! No stop it! Stop it! Stop it ! I can't stand it! (breaks down into nos and sobs)
VISION MASTER: [Are] you going to sign, Winston?
WINSTON: No! [No! I won't sign] VISION MASTER: Greenslade, three thirty meters.
GRAMS: 'LIFE WITH LYONS' SPEED UP
WINSTON: No! No, stop! {nurse (???)} arggh arggh ... [nurse (???) no more, stop] {arghh ooow noo oh oh} You fiend to let me hear that!
VISION MASTER: Sign!
WINSTON: No!
{VISION You won't sign?} MASTER:
{WINSTON: No!}
VISION MASTER: Greenslade...
GRAMS: 'HAVE A GO' GETTING FASTER AND FASTER UNDER:
WINSTON: Nooo!! [no] Not that. [arggggh help] {No, stop stop no, no.} Noooo! no no ...
VISION MASTER: I warn you Winston, here we can change people into somebody else. You know Eccles?
WINSTON: Yes?
VISION MASTER: He used to be Issy Bonn.(*8)
WINSTON: You're lying!
VISION MASTER: {You think so?} [Really?] Greenslade, call Barbara Kelly.
GREENSLADE: (calling) Miss Kelly!
ELLINGTON: Yes, you calling me Ronnie?
VISION MASTER: Ahh, Barbara dear, what's your line? (*9)
ELLINGTON: {Ah} coloured television.
VISION MASTER: Thank you dear, back on the old flying wire.
WINSTON: You fiend. Poor Barbara Kelly.
VISION MASTER: On the contrary, we think it is a great improvement.
WINSTON: It must be terrible at bed time with Braden.(*9)
VISION MASTER: Well it gets dark early in Canada, you know. WINSTON: So the awful torture went on. In three days I lost ten stone. My weight went down to a mere twenty stone. I looked so old and [so] ill, Wilfred Pickles demanded me for his TV programme. Then the torture started again!
GRAMS: SECOMBE OPERA RECORD
WINSTON: No! No! Stop! [stop you can't do this to me] This is agony, stop {that voice}, stop {that voice!} [stop!] stop that voice{!}. Stop it! [stop it] Whose is it?
VISION MASTER: Yours!
WINSTON: (clapping) More! Bravo! More, More! More! Encore! More! More, more. Let's have him back {again, short fat fellow with the glasses,} [more] more!
VISION MASTER: Moriarty? Take over, I'm going to Jim Davidson['s] for a saxophone lesson.
MORIARTY: Very good. (calling) Little torturer!
BLUEBOTTLE: Enter torturer Bluebottle, with junior cardboard cut out torture kit.
MORIARTY: {Listen,} little Lurgi-ridden Knuckoe. Prepare the screaming agony rack.
BLUEBOTTLE: Oh Goody {Goody}! Thinks: Perhaps 1985 is going to be a good year for Bloonbontle. Starts to get agony set ready.
WINSTON: (appealing frantically) No, Bluebottle, don't do it. Remember me? (nervous titter) Your old pal Neddie (*10) Seagoon? (nervous titter) Ha ha ha... Your friend [remember me]? (nervous titter) Ha ha...
BLUEBOTTLE: Yes?
{WINSTON: Remember me? (nervous titter) Ha ha ha ...}
BLUEBOTTLE: My friend...
WINSTON: Yes {, Bluebottle, you remember me? (nervous titter) Ha ha ha...} [yes]
BLUEBOTTLE: ...{~~~ ~~~ ~~} you are the one who deads me every week, aren't you. Ehee hee hehe!! Thinks: I know the very thing for him. Prepares dirty big pile of [the] dreaded dynamite. Eheehee! I like this game now, I do, {I like this} [It's a good game, I like it].
WINSTON: (nervous titter) Bluebottle! Bluebottle, [please] (nervous titter) stop!
BLUEBOTTLE: There. All is ready for the dreaded deading of the traitor Seagoon. Ladies and gentlemen [ying-tong- iddins-splong-ding] I want you to witness, that, for the first time{ules}[lings] in the history of the Goon Show{un}, Bluebottlns will not be deaded. Observe: I light a hundred foot fuse: so. Now {, all that remains, is for me} to escape. Taxi to the airport!
GRAMS: TAXI DRIVING OFF
BLUEBOTTLE: Stop! Airplane, drive me to {America} [Australia] !
GRAMS: JET TAKING OFF FAST
BLUEBOTTLE: Stop! Horse, drive to the desert!
FX: HORSE GALLOPING OFF FADE (COCONUT SHELLS)
BLUEBOTTLE: Ladies and gentlemen. Observe. I am now {six} [ten] thousand miles away from the dreaded dynamite. Here I am [quite] safe in the middle of the [Woomera] desert ... [oowl? what is this? ...]
FX: MIGHTY EXPLOSION (Atomic bomb), FALLING RUBBLE AND METAL (short pause)
BLUEBOTTLE: Eheeheehuu!!! You rotten swines you! Ehehehu, Exits left, never to play this rotten game again! Never never! Thinks: all right then next week. Ohh! Look at my knees, they've gone!
WINSTON: Meantime, back in the BBC {listening} [torture] room, I struggled to free myself before the dynamite exploded.
BLOODNOK: Don't worry Seagoon.
WINSTON: Bloodnok! Eccles!
BLOODNOK: Quick, untie him.
ECCLES: OK, I had better hurry up before the...
FX: EXPLOSION. ECCLES: That's got his legs free.
WINSTON: Yes, but where are they?
{ECCLES: Here dey are...}
MINNICK: Attention! Attention! Face the TV screen.
WINSTON: Look, it's {Horrace Minnick!} [Maurice Winnickstein].
MINNICK: Listen, listen! Great news! [listen listen] After a telephone conversation lasting three days, and bribes worth ten {pounds} [quid], I have gained control of the BBC.
WINSTON: Hooray! Freedom at last!
MINNICK: And here is the first of our {new style Independent Television Army} [ITA commercial] programmes!
GRAMS: \'RAYS'S A LAUGH'\ SPEEDING UP UNDER:
WINSTON: No!!! \, no, I can't stand it!\
\CAST: Hate, hate, hate, hate ...\
ORCHESTRA: THEME TUNE UP AND UNDER, FADING FOR...
GREENSLADE: That was the Goon Show, a recorded programme featuring Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan with the Ray Ellington quartet and Max Geldray. The orchestra was conducted by Bruce Campbell, script by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes, announcer Wallace Greenslade, the programme produced by Peter Eton. Notes:
1) I'm sure these Greenslade id numbers are now correct, after listening to it slowed down
2) Ronnie Waldman: BBC Radio show host 'Monday Night At Seven' (and, later, 'Eight'), later became Head of BBC Light Entertainment.
3) Maurice Winnick: booking agent and producer - bid for the first set of UK independent television licenses. Obviously no relation of "Horace Minnick" nor "Maurice Winnickstein".
4) Paul Fenoulhet: a conductor of various BBC orchestras, Audrey Cameron: a BBC producer.
5) Ben Lyon: American actor - BBC radio situation comedy "Life with the Lyons" along with kids and wife (Bebe Daniels, hence the "I hate BB too." joke.)
6) Len Hutton (excellent batsman) was opening bat and Captain of the British Team touring Australia at the time, he was out in the first over of the first innings of the first Test after only one scoring shot. He only averaged 21.5 in these Tests, less than half his career average of 54. Not a performance that the English fans expected.
7) Charlie Chester: stand-up comedian, Bob Monkhouse: British comedian, Gilbert Harding: BBC TV presenter (eg "What's My Line")
8) Issy Bonn: Jewish Musical Hall comedian from 40's and 50's
9) Barbara Kelly: Canadian born comedienne and actress - 'What's My Line' panellist. Together with husband Bernard Braden did a light-hearted BBC radio show, originally "Breakfast with Braden" later "Bedtime with Braden".
10) Once again we see Milligans device of having characters within the Goon Show playing characters in a radio play, so we have Harry playing Neddie who's playing Winston ...